Archive |
News from August 2008
Team Member Blane has just released this great compilation piece showing footage from the last five years of his training to date. Called simply Origins it highlights the sort of precision, power and fluidity of movement that all practitioners would be wise to aspire to. Definitely worth a watch. Click the link above to view. Sunday 31st of August 2008 
Earlier in the summer we were visited by a young man named Drake, whose wish was to come to the UK to learn parkour. Drake has synovial sarcoma, and was only just rebuilding his body from the recovery operations when the Make A Wish Foundation (UK) brought him to see us. He spent a week at our London Academy and practising with Forrest, and showed remarkable courage and determination throughout. The charity has just produced this short film following Drake's time with us, and we think it is definitely worth sharing as an excellent example of what you can achieve if you put your mind to it and refuse to give in. You can see the film on our YouTube Channel now. Saturday 30th of August 2008 
European Parkour Conference: Success! The European Conference in Finland for parkour/ADD instructors came to an end earlier this week and was a huge success all round. With 7 countries represented, and several of the founders and major developers of the discipline present in the form of the Yamakasi Founders and the Lisses traceurs, a great deal of progress was made towards creating a benchmark of teaching standards in Europe that can then be a model for other territories. The new ADAPT Certification Programme was introduced thoroughly to all the groups, and the whole conference was punctuated by some arduous training sessions - as it should be! For a candid insight into the Conference, see Chris' excellent review on our Team Blog. Friday 29th of August 2008 
Bristol: Project 360 Event 30/31 August This weekend sees Bristol's Project 360 event - an exciting new free urban festival of street art and performance - happening in the Lloyds Amphitheatre in Bristol. Parkour Generations Instructors Thomas and Chris will be running free workshops there throughout the day, so if you are in the area come along and join in! For location details and schedule for both days, see the link above. Thursday 28th of August 2008 
Morzine Training Camp: Few Places Left There are a few places left for the Alpine Training Camp we are running in September in Morzine, France. This unprecedented event will be covered by national media from the UK and France, and will be a breath of fresh air quite literally for those whose training is confined to urban environments..! The Camp runs from September 16-21 and all details can be found at the link above. For more information or to book one of the places, email us here on morzine(at)parkourgenerations.com Wednesday 27th of August 2008 
Weekly Workshop Courses: Westminster and Hull The second round of workshops for Hull City Council got underway today, along with the second week of AQA-accredited Westminster Summer University Parkour Sessions for the City of Westminster. Both courses have gone very well so far, and the Hull project continues into next week too. For further details about any of the Coaching Courses we run for local authorities around the UK please contact us here. Tuesday 26th of August 2008 
More news from the Global City Beats production, a user-generated content film project initiated by Yahoo, which features a short film entitled GoGirls! by our own Julie Angel of the ladies of the Parkour Generations Academy in action around London. Yahoo has recently put up 2 trailers for the project as well as a web page, which can be seen here. The producer will be in London during September working on a new bespoke soundtrack for GoGirls and will be meeting with some of the girls for interviews and publicity shots. GoGirls to date has had over one million views on YouTube, so well done ladies! Monday 25th of August 2008 
Off The Wall: August's Open London Jam - Sunday 31st This month's open jam in London will be held in Vauxhall, at a location that has fast become a firm favourite for training. These training day gatherings are open to any and all, regardless of experience or ability, and provide an ideal place to experiment and share knowledge and ideas on the discipline. We will be meeting at 12:40pm at Vauxhall Station, which is both on the Victoria Line, and also served by Overground trains from Clapham Junction, and Waterloo, as well as many buses passing through their new Bus Station. See the Journey Planner at http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk for more details. At 1pm we'll run from the station to a prior warm-up area, before moving onto the walls, so please be on time, if not earlier! Further details can be found at our Facebook Event Page, or simply by emailing Brian on brian(at)parkourgenerations.com. Monday 25th of August 2008 
Bank Holiday Monday Aug 25 - No Academy Class A reminder that Monday 25th August is a Bank Holiday, which means the sports centres will be closed and our regular Indoor Academy Class at Moberly Sports Centre will not be running. Classes resume as normal from Tuesday 26th. Friday 22nd of August 2008 
For a little more insight into the recent Teacher Training course we ran you can find a thorough post by Andy, one of the participants, on our Team Blog. The course went very well, and everyone in attendance gave a lot of energy and attention to the lessons and then put some great stuff into practise by assisting with the evening Academy classes. Some great future coaches there... Friday 22nd of August 2008 
Babylon A.D. - Action Clip Online A new action scene from the forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster featuring our own Thomas Couetdic and David Belle can be seen online here. Involving some simple, fast parkour action as Thomas and the guys chase Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeah inside an industrial nightclub, the scene gives a good idea of what the movie will be like and it is shaping up to be a bit of a blast. Release date is late August... Wednesday 20th of August 2008 
ADAPT: Instructor Certification Programme In May at the International Gathering in Evry, France along with the Yamakasi Founders we announced the release of the International Instructor Qualifications, which come under the name "A.D.A.P.T. Certification - Art du Deplacement And Parkour Teaching". The first qualifying course is running in the first week of September and will be held in London, from the 3rd to the 6th. These Certifications have been developed over a long time by many of the founders and developers of the discipline, and aim to raise the standard of the teaching of the discipline around the world. More information on A.D.A.P.T. can be found under the Classes menu, here. Tuesday 19th of August 2008 
Last week, Royal Oak provided the venue for a night shoot featuring Thomas and Johann. Andy Day (aka Kiell) was photographing the two athletes for The Vast Agency. A gallery of images will be added shortly. Tuesday 19th of August 2008 
The first European Conference for parkour coaching occurs this week, running from the 21st-26th August. This first conference, funded by the European Union, is being hosted by our good friends the Finnish Parkour Association and will see the leading figures in parkour instruction coming together under one roof to discuss the future of the discipline. Parkour Generations and the Yamakasi Founders, Majestic Force, will be representing the UK and France respectively and there will also be delegations from Spain, Denmark, Italy, Portugal etc. The conference, where we will be unveiling the new international instructor certification programme, will be a major step towards implementing a global coaching standard for the discipline to ensure that the knowledge and spirit of the founders is kept alive as it is passed to the future generations. Saturday 16th of August 2008 
The first ever Teacher Training Course is set to run this week, 18/19 August, and is now booked to the nines and completely full. This is the first stepping stone for those experienced practitioners who wish to go on to acquire the new International Instructor Certifications that have been created in conjunction with the pioneers of the discipline, the Yamakasi Founders. The next Teacher Training Course will be running on September 1st and 2nd, and is now available for booking as well. Saturday 16th of August 2008 
Parkour Generations would like to welcome officially a new female member to the Team, Anne-Therese Marais. Hailing from France and known as Annty to her friends, she has become a highly skilled practitioner and a leading figure in the female community of the UK over the past two years. We are very happy to have Annty on board and you will be seeing a lot more of her in the near future... Friday 15th of August 2008 
Street Active Workshops: West Berkshire Next week we will be running two days of workshops for West Berkshire Council's annual Street Active programme, engaging young people in a range of sport and physical activities over the summer. The workshops run on Tuesday 19th and Thursday 21st August, and full details on locations and times can be found here. Thursday 14th of August 2008 
BBC Coverage: Hull Council Workshops The first of the Hull City Council workshop courses finished today, and the BBC were there to cover it - a short piece featuring Chris and Yao can be seen on the BBC website here. These workshops continue next week and the week after, and have had an escellent vibe to them with some good skills and enthusiasm shown by the participants. Keep it up guys! Wednesday 13th of August 2008 
The various workshop courses running this week are all progressing very well, with great attendance and enthusiasm shown up in Hull and the ongoing Positive Futures Edutain workshops and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's 'Urban Week' daily sessions also proving extremely productive. Tomorrow's RBKC workshop is being held at the Rugby Portobello Trust on Wallmer Road at the Lancaster West Estate from 12-2pm, and is free for young people to attend. Next week is no less busy, with more for Hull City Council, Positie Futures, West Berkshire Council and Roehampton University, on top of our regular evening classes. No excuse not to train..! Wednesday 13th of August 2008 
Teacher Training Course Filling Up Fast The first official Teacher Training Course for parkour, being held on August 18th and 19th in London, is almost fully booked now. The course is a 2-day seminar covering the most important aspects of teaching parkour to others, and is a very useful step for anyone on the way to the full ADAPT Instructor Certifications being launched in the first week of September this year. Anyone wishing to take this opportunity to acquire some teaching knowledge in person from some of the most experienced guides of the discipline in the world should contact us immediately for one of the last places available. Details can be found at the link above. Monday 11th of August 2008 
Cinema Release: Babylon A.D. featuring Thomas Couetdic Later this month sees the cinema release of new Vin Diesel sci-fi blockbuster Babylon A.D, which features Team Member Thomas Couetdic playing a parkour-using evil operative. The action sequence also involves David Belle along with a few other traceurs, and sees Thomas et al fighting and chasing the muscled hero and his colleague Michelle Yeoh through a huge factory nightclub complex. Trailers and more details can be found on the movie's website here. Monday 11th of August 2008 
UK's ITV News came to visit one of our workshops courses for youngsters today, the Westminster Summer University sessions, and aired this piece on the news today. The session was in the safe hands of Chris and James at the Westminster Academy Sports Centre, who then took the news anchor out to a nearby training spot to see how he would fare... not bad, as it turns out.. ;) To view it, click here and forward to the 22 minute mark on the video (UK viewers only!). Wednesday 06th of August 2008 
The week of 11th August sees us adding two more workshop courses to our ongoing programmes for two more UK Councils. For the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea we will be running sessions every day from 12-2pm in various youth centres as part of their 'Urban Week'. For Hull City Council we will be running day courses on the 12th and 13th at the Costello Stadium, Anlaby Park Road North, Hull, HU4 6XQ. These then repeat for the following two weeks at different sports centre. Of course the Edutain Programme for Westminster also continues, as do the Roehampton University sessions on Wednesday evenings. Wednesday 06th of August 2008 
UK Play Day: Wednesday 6th August This Wednesday is UK Play Day, the annual celebration of children's right to play. On Playday and throughout the summer of 2008, thousands of children, young people and communities will get out and play at hundreds of locally organised events across the UK. Parkour is a fantastic way to focus this natural instinct to play and move in the young, and so Parkour Generations will be running workshops for the Playday programmes of Westminster Council as Regent's Park and Barnet Council at Friary Park, among others. As was wisely said, 'we don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing'.. Wednesday 06th of August 2008 
This week we start daily parkour workshops for the Summer University Programmes of Camden and Westminster Councils. These workshops will be running every day, for Westminster from 10am-1pm at the Westminster Academy Sports Centre and for Camden from 10.30am-1.30pm at Haverstock School in Camden. The Westminster Programme also runs from 26-29th August at the same location, and is the first officially accredited parkour course in the world as we are delivering the AQA in Parkour. The Summer University charity programme provides exciting, innovative and educational courses run in the summer and throughout the year, and we are very happy to be part of this network as it offers new opportunities for young people across London. Monday 04th of August 2008 
Teacher Training Course: August 18/19 With the upcoming release of the Instructor Certification, in conjunction with the Yamakasi Founders Majestic Force, we will be running some teacher training courses in London in advance. These are open to all, not just those planning to pass the Certification this year, and the first course will be held on August 18/19 in London and will be principally taught by Stephane and Forrest. The course will run for most of the morning and afternoon each day, and participants will be encouraged to attend our evening Academy classes to get a first-hand taste of instructing. Anyone interested in attending this first Teacher Training course should email Dan on dan(at)parkourgenerations.com Sunday 03rd of August 2008 
REMINDER: Girls' Jam Sunday 3rd August Last minute reminder that tomorrow (sunday August 3rd) sees this month's Girls' Jam going on, meeting at Kilburn Park underground station on the Bakerloo Line at 12pm. For those of you that haven't been before, they are free sessions, open to all abilities, but are not classes. There are however, always people on hand for advice and training tips, and there are often a few male guest instructors kicking around! We start with a group warm-up and the session runs from 12-3pm. For more information, email Tracey on tracey(at)parkourgenerations.com Saturday 02nd of August 2008 
We would like to welcome Agota officially to the Parkour Generations collective. Agota has been working behind the scenes with us for some time now, and has become an important part of the team. A skilled traceuse in her own right, we have no doubt you will be seeing much more of her in the near future... Saturday 02nd of August 2008 
Weekend Workshops: Saturday 2nd This Saturday we will be running public workshops for Wiltshire Council at Salisbury High School from 1-5pm, and also for the Queens Park Festival event at Queen's Park in the borough of Westminster from 1-6pm. This past week saw us running programmes for Brent's Parkour Camp, North Wiltshire Council, Norwich Council and Positive Futures in London, all of which were great successes. Our teaching schedule for the next few months is just as full, so anyone wishing to book a course should get in touch very soon..! Friday 01st of August 2008 |
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